Step 1: Old-Timey Photoshoot!

The first thing we did was take 376 pictures.

Well, lets back up. I told my kids what I wanted to do. Surprisingly, they were all on board! Even the 4 year old! Yay!
So we dressed them up. I picked church clothes that looked the most old-timey. And the boys wore some bow ties that I hot glued together. The boys had vests...the girl had an old school dress and dark gray tights. Pretty plain.

Then we found some accessories. Old keys, a vintage pocketwatch and a lacy parasol.

Then we trekked around our neighborhood...with me in a hoodie and yoga pants...looking for great picturesque places...and the little cemetery a mile across the road from us. (yes, we walked...we are a 1 car household)

Then I would take pictures with my kids in them...then they would come stand by me and I would take a few of just the background.
The best part about this photoshoot is that I didn't need all my kids to smile at the same time! :) I just told them to look kind of sad...and we got some great shots!

Step 2: Pixlr time!

I am a photoshop girl. I've used it since high school...I think that's when the cavemen first invented photoshop for pc's. Anyways.
I decided to try out pixlr...and I love it!
It's free...so super bonus there! And it navigates basically the same as photoshop, so it didn't take me long to figure things out!
So, try it!

I loaded in 2 pictures. One with my children in it...and one of the plain background!

Must say, I find this pretty awesome looking, and not that difficult to do. I've been looking for a nice tutorial/layout of what to do. I have been having the hardest time with Photoshop Elements. So, thanks for sharing this with us!

Thanks for the nice comment! :) I've used Elements before too...with no success! Weird, seeing that I feel really competent with photoshop 7...and pixlr translates pretty similarly. Biggest thing is how much time you have to spend learning it! Hope you try it out, this tutorial is pretty basic, just takes time taking pictures! :) Thanks again!

Very nice, good idea, nicely executed. Beats the heck out of the way we did it with film, calculating double exposures in the camera, or printing a double exposure with two negatives in the darkroom! Might even be better than using the built in double exposure settings in most digital SLR cameras these days! Well Done! Bravo!

Thanks so much! Yes, I did some double exposure stuff in my photography class in high school...I am thankful for editing software...but you need GOOD pictures to start! :) Thanks for your kind comment!

Glad you like it--and yay for another nearly Halloween baby! It's a simple technique...but my art teacher always said "crap in, crap out!"...so take some good pictures and you will get a good finished product! Thanks again! :)

But I am incredibly dense. I brought up both pictures OK. I tried to copy one to paste over the other and got strange boxes appearing. So exactly how do you do that? I could not rt click to do it, nor use the copy under the edit tab. I also could only get the layer(s) on the right side to toggle between the pictures. I'm goofing something real simple, I think. Any help? Thanks. Peter

I use my control buttons...so control A to select all, then control C to copy...then highlight or click on the other picture and then control V to paste. You can do the control A to select all and then just click and drag that layer to the other picture.... I hope this makes sense! :) Good luck!

Nice instructable. However, I'm lazy and did this before digital years ago with film by using the double exposure feature on my camera. Just composed it in the camera compensating exposure by underexposing each exposure on the same frame by one stop. Did it a couple Halloweens with the kids in costume.

Another Halloween baby here :D (10/31/1982) This is cool!! I never knew how to use Photoshop so I never bothered. But after seeing how fun and simple this is I may start playing with it. I have to check out the other program you said. Next stop... to visit your blog now :)

Yay for Halloween! You should definitely try out pixlr! My kids love it too! I just tell them that there isn't a button that if you push it the computer will blow up--so try out everything you can! Have fun! Thanks, I hope you do check out my blog--it's so fun! :)